Perri Read online

  At this moment Perri, who was gamboling with Porro in an oak, was attracted by the cries of the hawks. She ran along the thick limb, and sat down. “We needn’t be afraid of them,” she said.

  “They won’t do us any harm,” Porro agreed.

  “How oddly they act,” said Perri. “Are they crazy?”

  “Look,” Porro explained, “they have four children. They’re trying to teach them to fly.”

  “Oh, to fly!” Perri held her paws to her breast. “Flying must be wonderful!”

  Porro made the same gesture, and murmured to himself, longingly, “I wish I were a prince!”

  “Come on,” cried the father hawk, “come! It’s fun!”

  The young ones shifted nervously on their branch. None of them could quite get up the courage.

  “Don’t be cowards, there!” scolded the mother. “Don’t be lazy!”

  “The first one over to me,” said the father, “gets the best tidbits.”

  One of the four flung itself into the air, fluttered clumsily, but bore up, and moved a little way forward.

  “That’s right!” said the father.

  “And the rest of you?” the mother urged.

  The second let go of the branch and somersaulted as if about to fall.

  “Bungler!” the mother scolded. At this the little one pulled itself together. It landed uncertainly on the ground.

  “Don’t sit on the ground!” the father yelled.

  The second one rose, and the first one, who had also tried to rest on the ground. Both returned successfully to the ash.

  “Well, you two?” the mother scolded those left behind. “Make up your minds!”

  At this the one fourth in line came straight to her. It staggered a little, but made a neat curve, and got back to the tree.

  Before the parents could call it, the third leaped boldly into the air. It did not somersault, it did not stagger or flutter; it sailed straight ahead with regular wing-beats.

  “Good, little fellow!” The father was delighted.

  “He hesitated longest,” the mother insisted.

  “Yes, but he’s keeping it up longest, too,” rejoiced the father.

  The third began to circle like its parents. It managed beautifully.

  “Talent!” The father was all admiration. “Real talent!”

  But the mother grew anxious. “Don’t overdo, my child. That was very good. Excellent. Now you must rest.”

  But the little one had not had enough. It was air-mad.

  The mother dived at it, and chased it to the ash. “Will you mind, or won’t you?”

  It minded.

  The old birds swam tirelessly through space, leading the youngsters on.

  “Show some spirit! Follow your brother’s example!”

  They whizzed across one another’s tracks, one hesitating, another boldly enjoying its new skill, soon tired, but persistent. It was difficult to tell them apart any more.

  “It must be hard to learn to fly,” squeaked Perri.

  “Hard?” Porro shrugged scornfully. “Those young birds are stupid. If I had wings—”

  “And what patience the old ones have!” said Perri, taking no notice of this boasting.

  “I have none left,” cried Porro, bounding into the woods with magic grace.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE BRIGHT, HOT WEATHER HAD gone on and on, to the squirrels’ delight; now it was interrupted. Misty veils hid the sun as if milk had poured over the sky. The forest was filled with the troubled stillness of expectation. All the birds were silent. The pheasants fluttered from their resting-places to the ground without a word; hungry sparrow hawks, buzzards and falcons circled silently in the breathless air. Only occasionally the chattering of a magpie who could not hold her tongue was heard; even she would suddenly lower her voice, as if startled. Blackbirds, finches, thrushes and jays kept to the leaves; the titmice hid in the thickets. Perri was in her nest, pressed close to her mother. Porro had not appeared at all. They all knew, or they felt, what was coming.

  The heat went up in waves, as if ready to break into instant flame.

  There was a sudden blast of wind, and the trees rustled noisily. Black clouds rolled up like huge puffs of smoke, first slowly, then faster and more menacingly. It grew dark.

  A wild windstorm began. It chased the thick clouds, lashed the treetops, reached furiously through the thicket with giant fist. It whirled up fallen leaves and dry twigs. The trunks groaned and creaked; where they were close together they scraped unwillingly. Strong limbs broke, screaming painfully as they splintered, and dangling helplessly by threads of bark before they fell. In its blind fury the wind snapped young trees. Within a few seconds the forest was full of wounded and fallen.

  Suddenly lightning flickered and glared from the black clouds; roaring thunder made the vast air tremble.

  Perri, terrified, snuggled closer to her mother. She had never seen anything like this.

  With its dying puffs the wind seemed to say to the clouds, “I’ve done my part; now it’s your turn.”

  The clouds opened as if they had been waiting just for this. Their ugly gloom turned to pure water. A mighty torrent came down, slapping and roaring, drowning the world in the flood. The woods were senseless under this elemental assault. The cloudburst lashed the leaves of tree and bush. Flash after flash, thunderclap after thunderclap.

  But the dry earth drank the precious moisture greedily. The angry rain subsided, and its rage gave way to a gentler swish. Thunder and lightning had cleansed the air of brooding heat, and the forest was refreshed and full of new life.

  Gradually the clouds wore to tatters. More and more blue sky appeared, and the sun shone again; it was not fierce yet, but warm and healing. The birds sang their loveliest melodies. A refreshing smell went through the forest—the aromatic scent of earth, of wet wood, leaves and herbs.

  Perri left the shelter of her nest. She slipped away from her mother, and started leaping gaily among the branches. Porro had not yet appeared.

  All creatures now came boldly out from the thickets, seeking the sun in clearings and meadows; its warm caress took the chill from fur and feather.

  The gossiping magpies flew hither and thither, telling one another again about what had just happened. Perri, who had of course seen nothing, listened eagerly to the descriptions of her friend the magpie. She listened without stopping for a second, racing up trunk and down, with the magpie flying behind her. “Come a little farther,” the magpie said, “where you can get a clear view. You don’t see a thing like this every day. There’s a whole convention!”

  Inquisitive as always, Perri hurried from tree to tree until she reached a branch stretching far out over the meadow.

  Deer were standing in the grass; the fawns, close to their mothers, were quieter than usual. Hares sat motionless and worried; sometimes they raised their ears to listen. Proud pheasants wandered slowly about with heads erect.

  Perri heard a hurried scratching. “Porro’s coming!” she cried.

  Porro whipped toward his playmate, reached her at a bound, and bubbled over: “Here you are at last! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I’ve been out for a long time,” Perri replied, “but you kept me waiting.”

  “Remember how far it is,” Porro defended himself, and then went on, “Wasn’t it frightful? I thought it was the end of me. Oh, it was dreadful!”

  “I was with my mother,” she reported.

  “You know I live alone,” said Porro. “Being alone wasn’t so nice this time.”

  “I was terribly afraid, too,” Perri confessed.

  “Everyone was afraid,” chattered the magpie, pointing downward with a twist of her body. “Those creatures down there can’t hide like you; they have to wait for whatever happens.”

  “Oh! Oh!” cried Perri and Porro, who were looking toward the meadow. “Oh! Oh!”

  From the green wall of brush came three of the great red deer—three hinds—one a
fter another. They went softly to the middle of the meadow; there they stood still.

  The roe deer sprang away.

  A brief crackling and soft bumps were heard. Another red deer, a stag, came out upon the meadow, hesitating, but with his head proudly raised. His antlers glinted, dark and damp; the ten shiny points glimmered.

  “How tremendous!” stammered Porro.

  “We’ve never see them,” Perri added.

  “That’s a king,” the magpie explained.

  “A king,” Perri repeated thoughtfully. Then she asked, “Are there other kings?”

  “Kings enough,” said the magpie, “old and young, weak and strong. Some of them have magnificent crowns.”

  “Aren’t they very dangerous?” inquired Perri.

  “They are noble,” said the magpie emphatically, “noble, because kings have to be noble. Everyone admires them; no one wants to rouse their anger.”

  “Then they are dangerous,” insisted Perri.

  “Not a bit—gentle, kind, modest . . .”

  “Then why did the roe deer run off?” Perri inquired. “I noticed they were gone the moment the gentry appeared.”

  “They did that out of respect,” the magpie instructed her; “they don’t like to stay near their grand relatives. Perhaps they’re ashamed of being so small; perhaps they’re embarrassed at their smaller antlers. At any rate the roe deer are bashful, and the red deer proud and indifferent. There may be deeper reasons, but that’s what I think.”

  Perri said, “You’re very wise.”

  “I’ve lived a long time, and seen a lot of things,” replied the magpie, with a sort of half-modesty.

  Porro gazed spellbound at the hart. “What are we compared to him? Nothing!” he sighed. “I wish I were a king.”

  The warning screech of the jay pierced the air. Two or three magpies chattered, “Away! Quick! Away!”

  The magpie talking to the squirrels instantly joined in. Aside she whispered, “Something’s happening—but heaven knows what.”

  The stag raised his head. Without wasting a moment, his female companions started at a trot toward the sheltering underbrush. Scarcely had the antlered one seen them when he began to gallop, overtaking the females and hurrying them along at his own pace. He was not fifty yards from the green wall that would have hidden him, when—

  Bang!

  The bullet flung him into a leap with all four feet off the ground. It was not his own will, it was a force of which he knew nothing. A monstrous shock went through him, and he lost consciousness. His great, gentle eyes still had a horrified expression, and their whites were visible. Then, after a brief flight, sudden death hurled him down. Blood foamed at his mouth; the grass turned red beneath him.

  Magpies, hares, pheasants, squirrels in the trees, all raced in wild panic for the woods. Only the jay, safe in hiding, screeched loud disapproval—just once. Otherwise, deep stillness.

  Back among the branches the magpie whispered, “That was He!”

  “He’s fearful!” Porro shook himself. “I’ve never seen what He looks like. It must be a terrible sight.”

  Shuddering, Perri asked, “Well, Porro, are you still sorry you aren’t a king?”

  Porro hurried onward without a word.

  “Far from it!” said the magpie. “Everyone to his own station. It’s a childish dream to want another form. In the forest there is no equality; remember that.”

  Perri and Porro did not hear this wise doctrine. They were already far away.

  Chapter Twelve

  NOONDAY HEAT BROODED over the trees; noonday calm was everywhere. Only the doves cooed tirelessly, deep among the leaves. Only the bumbling of the beetles, the hum of the bees and the fine buzz of the dancing gnats were faintly heard. The butterflies tumbled noiselessly, drunk with sun. There was a glassy quivering in the air—fumes from the baking earth. The odor of green things was exhaled more strongly, as if they were gasping for breath under pressure; it was almost possible to hear them breathe.

  The silence fell more heavily on the forest. But the doves, tireless in their courtship, kept up a lovesick cooing.

  Perri leaned against the oak and dozed. She was sluggish with sleep, hardly able to hold up her tail, the tip of which dangled slack.

  Porro, equally sleepy, moved lazily closer.

  “One never has any peace,” he mumbled peevishly. “Those doves make me sick.”

  Perri painfully opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you hear them?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He was surprised, but murmured lazily, “No? Then I envy you.”

  “What about the doves?” Perri asked.

  “Why,” Porro mumbled disgustedly, “that eternal ‘Just youuu—just youuu.’ ”

  “Oh, that doesn’t bother me any,” said Perri.

  “It’s driving me crazy!” Porro, growing angry, gradually woke up. “I ask you, what kind of sense does it make? ‘Just youuu, just youuu!’ It goes on all day long. It’s all right with me; I don’t pay any attention either, usually. But now, at this one quiet time, now, when I’d like to take a little rest, now, when everything is peaceful, now they might be still! But not a bit of it! They just keep on grinding out their silly ‘Just youuu.’ What do they mean by keeping on saying ‘Just you,’ anyhow?”

  “I don’t know,” said Perri, indifferently.

  “You don’t know!” Porro went on. “Nobody knows, I imagine! They probably don’t know themselves. In all the wide woods there’s no creature so stupid as these doves, so stupid and tiresome and annoying. All they know is their silly ‘Just you’! I’d like to know when they eat, when they drink—if they can think at all, or talk about anything useful. Oh, I’m not even curious. Those feeble-minded doves aren’t worth it!”

  The titmice began to whisper; the magpies chattered again, and the woodpecker hammered and laughed. High in the air rang the cry of a hawk.

  Perri shook herself out of her midday stupor. There were beechnuts; there were hazelnuts, plenty and ripe. The doves were forgotten.

  Like red flames Perri and Porro raced through the trees, through the brush, through the soft, warm grass.

  Then suddenly they sat speechless, pressing their forepaws against their white breasts.

  A roebuck passed close in front of them. A magnificent roebuck. He paid no attention to the squirrels; he saw nothing and paid attention to nothing.

  His head sank low, his nose was close to the ground. He was looking for his doe. He hunted and hunted and passed on, drawn by an invisible cord that would not let him go.

  When he was gone, the two whisked up a tree. “He didn’t notice us,” said Perri.

  “Strange,” said Porro.

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” replied Perri. “How could he have come up so suddenly without our hearing him?”

  “What surprises me,” said Porro, “is that he goes out for a stroll now, in broad daylight.”

  “Why shouldn’t he go for a stroll by day?” said Perri. “We go around by day.”

  “We’re . . . it’s different with us. We sleep at night. Are you forgetting that He lies in wait in the woods by day? He! The greatest of all dangers to deer. He might see them and reach them with his thunder hand—that’s why they hide and sleep during the day, and don’t go out except from dusk to daybreak. That’s why we see them so seldom.”

  “Well, in that case . . .” Perri grew thoughtful. “Well, then I don’t understand . . . why . . .”

  Porro decided the matter. “He’s crazy, that roebuck, just plain crazy.”

  There was a tittering overhead. Perri and Porro jumped with surprise, and looked up.

  On the branch above them swung the big black squirrel, Mirro, laughing.

  “Questions, questions—always questions!”

  With that he swung to the treetop, and was lost to view.

  “The crazy fellow!” said Porro.

  “The crazy fellow!” echoed Perri.

  “We
don’t belong with that old chap,” said Porro. “Come on, let’s find some hazelnuts.”

  “And elderberries!” agreed Perri hungrily.

  The roebuck was forgotten, like the tiresome doves.

  Chapter Thirteen

  WITHOUT STOPPING, PERRI sprang from tree to tree. It was still early. Porro had just arrived; he followed his silent playmate.

  “Where to?” he cried.

  Perri leaped from an oak to a beech. Porro repeated his question: “Where to?” He got no answer. Perri did not stop in the beech; she bounded on to the next one, to a third, then to an ash. Below in the thicket were luxuriant hazel bushes, heavy with fruit. Many hazelnuts which had burst open lay in the grass. An elderberry bush offered its fruit on big platters.

  Oho, thought Porro, this is where she was heading for. In an instant he was down. “Here, Perri, here!” he shouted up at her. “You’re going past it!”

  But Perri passed on deliberately. She had seen the hazel bushes and the elder-bush, but still she whipped through the treetops; still she flourished her bushy tail.

  Disappointed and curious, Porro raced up the ash. She knows something better, he thought.

  But Perri was already on her way to the second, the third, the fourth ash. An easy bound, in a bold, graceful curve, and Perri was in the maple.

  Now Porro grew annoyed. “Either you tell me where we’re going, or I don’t go any farther!”

  She raced on without a word.

  He sat down, holding his little paws to his breast, and whistled after her, “I’m not going any farther!”

  Perri did not stop; she knew he would come all the same. And she wanted to surprise him . . . to surprise him with Annerle.

  It was a long time since Perri had visited Annerle; she had almost forgotten the human child. During the night she had suddenly remembered her again. Now she had a strange yearning for Annerle, and wanted to show her to Porro. But she must lead him there without a word. Whether it was only a whim, or a sort of presentiment, something commanded silence. She did not stop to reflect; she thought only of surprising her playmate.